


this is a magic circle

by clarinetta



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Flashback, Gen, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 15:28:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2697941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarinetta/pseuds/clarinetta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Picking up one of the few rationed pencils they have left in her clumsy five year old hand, Octavia starts to draw in a large arc around the two of them. She's halfway through before Bellamy realizes what she's doing.</p><p>"Like in the movie you said to me," Octavia says as she completes the lopsided loop around them. She crawls into Bellamy's lap and snuggles into his neck. "The princess movie. When the prince makes the circle around the princess so she was safe? It's magic so we can't get hurt."</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is a magic circle

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I don't really know where this one came from at all. I set out to write something completely different. (The reference is to the movie A Little Princess, obviously, which I headcanon as one of just a few hundred films that survived the war.)

Bellamy Blake is three-almost-four and his mother is crouched against one drab wall of their tiny apartment, drenched in sweat, dripping fear and pain in little droplets that splash to the floor. She is bleeding from a place Bellamy can't see. He wants to run away and hide under his favourite blanket but she won't let him. His eyes are wide and dark and frightened as his mother, brave and imposing and the only grownup he knows, writhes against the wall, trying to stay quiet. Against all his childish instincts, Bellamy stays quiet too. This, he knows, is a secret thing, and he must not tell.

His mother wrenches herself once, twice, then catches her own child as it slithers out of her. Bellamy leans forward to see, trembling in his terror and excitement. Wrinkled, red-faced, covered in blood, the baby barely looks human to Bellamy, but he sees the swath of dark matted hair, just like his, and loves her instantly anyway.

"You have a sister," his mother whispers breathlessly, giddy laughter hovering around the edges of her voice. It makes Bellamy feel like laughing too. He is suddenly so happy that he wants to jump around and scream with the bubbly feeling of it, but instead he holds his tiny hands out and lets his mother rest the baby in his arms.

He names her after someone else's sister, and lets her suck on his fingers, and smiles at her, and does not realize that this moment is both the end and the beginning of his life.

\--

He is not allowed to have friends.

The day he turns eight, he brings a boy from his class, Miller, back to his apartment without asking. He does it without thought, the excitement of his birthday overshadowing everything. Tugging happily at Miller's hand, they run down the hallway to his door, marked with a faded number 14. He raps out the secret knock which gives Octavia time to hide, and though he has the lie ready on his tongue in case Miller asks, he doesn't need it; Miller stands placidly, just waiting to be let in. Bellamy counts to ten and opens the door; even at five years old Octavia is well trained in keeping quiet in her hiding place, so Bellamy and Miller play undisturbed for almost an hour before their mother comes home.

She manages to stay calm while she ushers Miller out, and makes sure he knows his way back to his own apartment, but when she closes the door and turns on Bellamy, he finds himself taking a step backward without meaning to. Rage shadows her face, lights up her eyes, making Bellamy think of an image of a demon he saw once in the back of an old Bible. She walks toward him slowly, shaking, and Bellamy realizes she is just as afraid as he is, maybe more.

"What were you thinking?" she hisses.

"I didn't--"

The slap comes so fast he doesn't even have time to flinch. Her hand is hard and mean and makes his eyes sting.

"What does he know? Did he see anything? How could you be so stupid?" The questions fire one after the other, too fast for him to answer. His terrified silence just makes her angrier and he cowers as she reaches for him again. She takes him by the shoulders and shakes, hard, one, two, three, until his head rattles and hurts his neck.

" _I didn't tell him anything!_ " Bellamy finally cries, unbidden tears streaming down his cheeks. His mother's handprint burns. It is the first time he can remember hating Octavia for being born, and it will not be the last. She glares at him for a moment longer and he thinks maybe she'll hurt him for real this time, but very suddenly the rage-light in her eyes goes out and she withers, dropping to her knees. He feels her fingers loosen on his shoulders and he seizes the opportunity to run.

He's still crying when Octavia creeps into his room half an hour later and joins him under the thin blanket. She stares at him solemnly for a moment, then kisses his cheek, the one with his mother's handprint still burned into it. The blanket makes a crosshatch pattern of shadows on her face. Then, she does something strange that Bellamy never forgets; she pushes the blanket back and pulls Bellamy to the floor by his wrist. Picking up one of the few rationed pencils they have left in her clumsy five year old hand, Octavia starts to draw in a large arc around the two of them. She's halfway through before Bellamy realizes what she's doing.

"Like in the movie you said to me," Octavia says as she completes the lopsided loop around them. She crawls into Bellamy's lap and snuggles into his neck. "The princess movie. When the prince makes the circle around the princess so she was safe? It's magic so we can't get hurt. 'Member?"

Bellamy sighs and buries his face in Octavia's hair. "I remember," he murmurs. He wants to tell her it was just a story, but as he closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep, he feels safer than he's ever felt before.

\--

He is sixteen and skating on the edge of finally having a real life as a guardsman when everything goes to shit. One stupid night too full of heady whooshing love for his bright-eyed secret sister and before he can blink his mother is on death row. They've taken Octavia somewhere and won't tell him where, but he takes comfort in repeating one of the Ark's most sacred laws to himself, over and over: "No child under the age of eighteen shall be executed for his or her crimes; he or she must be placed under strict police supervision until his or her eighteenth birthday, at which point his or her crimes shall be evaluated and a verdict decided upon."

The guardsmen who were supposed to be his future colleagues question him extensively; to what end he cannot discern. He stares at the scuffed table and drinks the lukewarm water they provide and answers their questions truthfully, flatly, without embellishment or inflection. When they finally seem satisfied, they leave him alone in the interrogation room, one wrist chained to the table, the metal chair digging uncomfortably into his back. He sits there for what feels like hours and doesn't think.

Finally, one of the senior officers lets herself into the room and closes the door behind her. She sits facing Bellamy with a piece of paper in her hands, and when Bellamy looks up, he sees a hint of sadness in her eyes.

"The Chancellor has made a decision," she says quietly.

"Where's my mom?" Bellamy asks. His voice is steady, but it's a near thing.

"Aurora Blake is to be executed for her crimes," the officer reads off the paper, and Bellamy's heart drops out. "The Chancellor has discerned that although you were an accomplice, you were too young to have a choice in the matter and were thus compelled to comply with your mother's crimes. He has released you from all blame and your record remains clean. The illegal child is to--"

"Octavia." Startled, the officer looks up. Bellamy feels himself start to shake. He bares his teeth and growls, "Her name is _Octavia_."

The officer starts again, trying to hide the fact that she is unnerved. "The illegal child--Octavia Blake--in accordance with Ark law is to be kept secluded in prison until the day of her eighteenth birthday, at which time her crimes will be evaluated and a verdict decided upon."

"Her crimes?" Fury sweeps through him and he's on his feet before remembering that he's chained to a table. "She never did anything to you! All she did was exist and you're locking her up?"

"Sit down, Mr. Blake, or I will be forced to restrain you further," the officer warns. Her hand drifts toward the taser hanging from her belt, so Bellamy gathers the last threads of calm he can find and slowly sits down again. The officer watches him for a moment before continuing to read the sentencing. _Funny_ , Bellamy thinks dazedly, _how ink printed on a piece of paper can end life as you know it._

"Aurora Blake is to be executed via airlock in ten hours' time," the officer finishes, folding the paper with finality.

There is a silence that threatens to swallow Bellamy whole. He steadies himself for a long moment before asking the dreaded question: "Can I see them? Before you float her?"

"I'm afraid not," the officer says gently. "You and Octavia may be present at the execution if that is your choice." Bellamy nods; it's the only thing he can do without screaming.

The officer unchains his wrist and walks him back to his apartment with one hand on his back to make sure he doesn't try to run. He wants to tell her not to bother; his legs feel like lead, like deadweights he can barely remember how to drag into steps. He opens the door to number 14 ( _my own apartment now,_ he thinks with a nasty jolt), and the officer follows him inside.

"Sorry," she says with a regretful look. "I'm to wait here with you and take you to the execution when it's time."

"So I don't try to break my family out of jail," Bellamy bites out. She nods, not looking at him, and with great effort he restrains himself from lunging at her. He asks through gritted teeth, "Can I sleep in my own room at least?"

"I don't see why not."

His room is dim, the air stale from being shut up for so many hours. The deep thrumming machine hum of the Ark always felt louder here than anywhere else; he'd had a hard time sleeping in here unless Octavia was with him. Recently he's started sleeping in the cadet's quarters so his bedroom has been mostly unused for some weeks. A fine layer of dust covers every surface.

Very suddenly, with a force that nearly drives him to his knees, he remembers Octavia on all fours, her little face pinched with concentration, drawing that circle around them. They'd fallen asleep there, the two of them clenched up tight together so that not even one toe would cross the pencil marking. Bellamy looks around the room for a pencil, forgetting momentarily that he'd used up their last rationed nub on a birthday card for Octavia last year. So instead, he kneels carefully in the middle of the room and begins marking an invisible circle with his finger. He drags his hand through the dust, turning on the spot, the unforgiving floor panels grinding his knees, until the circle is complete, and lies down in the center of it with his legs pulled up to his chest. Although he is nearly seventeen and six feet tall, he feels like a helpless child again, three-almost-four and watching his mother give birth in secret.

 _I killed her_ , he thinks. _I killed them both._ A horrible wail escapes his throat before he can stop it; the brute force of his guilt makes him curl up even tighter, all air squeezed out of his lungs. He finally gets a breath and it rattles apart into sobs that don't stop for another two hours.

\--

It's been weeks since they landed on earth and the Grounders have sent John Murphy back to them in the form of a weapon. Bellamy is grateful to be healthy, but then there is a wetness under his nose and horror in the way people are looking at him and his fingers come away red from his lips. A wave of horrifying chill crashes over him despite the brightness of the sun. He doesn't know he's falling until someone grabs him around the waist and nearly has to drag him to the dropship. Soon he's choking on metallic blood, spilling it onto the floor, only managing to stay on the cot that has been provided because of unseen hands that holds him steady. Then, like magic, a voice he would know a thousand miles away breaks through the pounding in his head. He wrenches his eyes open and there she is, greasy-haired from a lack of clean water and streaked in someone else's blood and just as beautiful as the day she was born.

"Hey, big brother," she says, smiling.

"I'm scared, O," he gasps. He feels tears spilling out, mixing with the blood on his face. Octavia's eyes go dark and serious as she wipes his cheeks clean.

"I won't let anything happen to you," she says determinedly. "I promise. Watch." She presses her thumb and first finger together to imitate holding a pencil and touches them to the edge of the cot. She draws an invisible magic circle all the way around Bellamy, closing him in.

And it's silly and childish and an illusion, but with that circle around him and Octavia nearby, he finally feels safe enough to let himself fall asleep.


End file.
